Lately, I have seen a lot of talk about liberals and how
we are ruining America, etc. That’s
probably a whole other post, what being a liberal means to me, but for right
now, let’s talk about making America great.
I also see a lot of tripe from Donald Trump about how he
wants to “make America great again.” As
a lifelong liberal, I tend to look past soundbites and catchphrases, and ask,
exactly what does that mean? As George
Carlin said, “I do this real moron thing called thinking, and I’m not a very
good American because I like to form my own opinions.”
I think about America’s history. Based on Donald Trump’s words and behavior, I’m
assuming he wants an America that is great for HIM, not necessarily anyone
else. At the time of America’s birth,
women were not allowed to vote, and black people were enslaved and treated as
less than human. Life expectancy was
very low, and child mortality and deaths of women during childbirth were
common. Domestic violence and child
abuse were encouraged and sanctioned, and
human and civil rights for anyone other than white male landowners was
virtually non-existent.
Not many years prior, accused witches were burned at the
stake,tortured and killed. Many of these
women were herbal healers, a threat to male-based allopathic medicine, which was
more invasive and often less effective.
Superstition and fear-based religion were the order of the day, and it
was not a safe time to be a woman. It
still isn’t.
Fast forward to 1825, roughly 50 years later. Not content to oppress Native Americans on
the eastern seaboard, white immigrants began to appropriate more and more
land. In January, Congress began forced
relocation of Oklahoma Natives in an event now referred to as the Trail of
Tears. This become a pattern, as what
white people referred to as Manifest Destiny was rightly referred to by Natives
as genocide.
By 1859, the railroads were in full swing from Atlantic
to Pacific, and Oregon, my home state, was founded. At one time I was proud of Oregon’s refusal
to institute racism, but was horrified to learn the reason. It was founded as a “white homeland,” and the
reason folks didn’t want slavery is because they didn’t want black people
here. In 1844, when it was known as “Oregon
Country,” a “lash law” was imposed that any black person, slave or free, who
dared to live here would be lashed twice a year as punishment.
During this same time frame, many Chinese and Irish
immigrants came across the oceans in hopes of a new life. They were, instead, met with extreme
prejudice and hatred. They were
persecuted, denied work and housing, and lived in poverty, misery and
suffering.
Native Americans had been relegated to reservations, and
their children, like those of slaves, had been systematically ripped away to
boarding schools, where they were “re-educated.” This was a euphemism for being punished and
tortured and reviled for not being white, forced to speak only English, have their hair cut off, and lose ties to their families and loved ones as small children, a
direct manifestation of white supremacy sentiment.
Not just people of color were suffering. Labor had long been unregulated, exploitative,
and extremely dangerous. Over the
decades, several attempts had been made to unionize, which had been
quashed. The 1870’s were a particularly
violent time for low-wage workers in slave conditions.
Wealth inequality was well established by 1900. Mass concentration of wealth through
acquisitions, such as J.P. Morgan’s U.S. Steel Company in 1901, and the
unbridled power of banking firms, led to a population of one percent owning more
national wealth than the other 99 percent (sound familiar? Now it’s 1/10th of 1%).
Life expectancy for whites was 48 years and nonwhites was
34. The work force included 1.75 million children under 15 and more than five
million women, who sometimes worked for a penny an hour.
In 1914, the infamous Ludlow Massacre resulted in the
deaths of 1200 striking miners and their families, who were attacked and
murdered in their tents, in Colorado. The
year prior, on Christmas Eve, 73 men, women, and children were killed when they
were trampled to death at an upstairs party in a theater. Someone falsely yelled, “Fire,” then
blockaded the doors, trapping the people in the building. The partygoers were striking mineworkers and
their families, and the suspected instigators were anti-union thugs.
There were many other incidents, which most of us never
were told about in school, in our government-approved curriculum. Remember, history is written by the victors.
The right to vote for women, in 1920, was hard-won, and
the result of untold suffering and persecution.
It took a long concerted effort, and women were tortured and killed in
the course of gaining their rights.
Black men had been allowed to vote since 1870. However, this was not any guarantee of being
treated as humans, and lynchings and torture of people, for the “crime” of
being black, continued for generations.
In 1927, work began to carve the faces of four wealthy
white male landowners into what had been sacred Native American land in the
Dakotas. In 1939 Mount Rushmore, a
visible reminder of subjugation and white domination over native peoples, was
complete.
During the 1930’s, following bank crashes and other
crises, America was thrust into the throes of the Great Depression, and it was
a decade of grinding poverty and misery… unless you were part of the wealthy
1%.
In the 1940’s many American men were going off to war,
and there was a new workforce: women.
Unfortunately, many women, who were skilled workers supporting families,
were displaced and told to “go back to the kitchen” once World War II
ended. Japanese Americans were
wrongfully interned into camps, even as some of their loved ones were serving
overseas. Many of them never regained
their jobs, possessions, or homes.
Life continued to be miserable during this time for
people of color, many of whom had loyally served their countries, only to come
home to anything but a hero’s welcome.
While the NAACP won some victories in the Supreme Court, there was a
horrible backlash against people of color in the south after race riots in New
York and Detroit.
The post-war era in the forties marked the beginning of
the Cold War with Russia and a kind of palpable fear in society that remains. It also marked the beginning, in 1950, of the
civil rights era. The fifties brought us
the Korean War, civil unrest, and the shame that was the McCarthy era. Too few
people know that neither our pledge of allegiance nor our currency before the 50’s
mentioned God. The separation of church
and state which was precious to the founding fathers was thrown out the window
by fear-ridden and paranoid lawmakers, with a Bible in one hand and a flag in
the other.
The 50’s mark one of the most repressive, uptight eras in
our society. Diversity and
individuality, as well as freedom of expression were frowned upon. Racism, sexism and xenophobia were rampant as
ever, and being gay was something nobody even dared to talk about.
The 60’s marked a time of great unrest but also great
social growth. Issues which had been
taboo and “improper” in the 50’s were now open for discussion. School segregation, women’s rights, “race
relations,” lesbian and gay rights, poverty programs and other social
constructs were topics of the day. Protests
against the Vietnam war, environmental abuse, and nuclear weapons
happened all over the country. Sexuality
began to be embraced as part of being human, and women’s groups began to emerge
where women shared their experiences. Domestic violence began to be
seen as a social ill, and less something to be tolerated. However, there were no shelters or other
places to get help. It wasn’t until the
end of the decade and early 70’s that there began to be resources for abuse
survivors. Spousal rape was still legal.
The Freedom Riders, with their brave actions, forced the
hand of elected officials to desegregate busing. It’s worth mentioning the importance of
allies in any civil rights movement.
Just like male allies helped women to get the vote, white Freedom Riders
(and their worried parents) brought attention to the movement. Any time we have privilege, and see someone
else being hurt, we have an obligation to use our privilege to help that person
or group, and the white Freedom Riders were a great example: not of being any
more brave than the black riders, but as an example of realizing that we are
all in this together and need to stick up for one another.
The
seventies saw the end of Vietnam and the effect (again) on corporate owned
media on masses of people who demonized returning soldiers instead of the
warmongers who made a huge profit from the deaths of so many. It also saw the beginning of pushback against
the progress made by the civil rights movement.
A counter-movement began, called the New Right, with a specific agenda:
Complete freedom to make money through businesses, including
the freedom to exploit workers and pollute the environment.
2. Eliminate public property, such as
public parks and schools.
3. Cut taxes for the richest Americans
4. Cut public service funding, like
education, housing, food stamps, etc.
Ronald Reagan’s
administration, with the backing of the New Right, overturned many advances in
civil rights which had taken decades to achieve. He is also
famous for his “trickle-down” theory of economics, which was based on the
premise (well, let’s be honest, a lie) that creating tax breaks and incentives
for very wealthy Americans would cause them to reinvest the money back into the
economy and help everyone. Predictably,
they stashed it into investments for themselves and overseas bank accounts,
while the rest of society continued to suffer and wealth inequality grew.
The New Right
has dredged up old oppressive dialogue, which has resulted in hateful commentators
such as Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, who blame and shame anyone who is poor
or oppressed, and perpetuate the myth that if you are poor it’s because you are
lazy. They promote a dog-eat-dog philosophy
which is derisive and divisive. Rather
than work to improve society in general, they are profiteers and charlatans
with an inflated sense of superiority.
They fan the underlying fears of racial tensions and anti-immigrant
sentiment, scapegoating those who aren’t white, wealthy, male, landowners. They claim Christianity, while embracing none
of its precepts or expectations of morality.
They use their wealth and corporate power to buy legislators, influence
laws, and block accurate education, particularly in history. They depend on the stupidity of the masses to
support them in their hate.
Unless you are
better educated than most, you may not have heard of the Ludlow Massacre,
1913 Massacre, and the Oregon Lash Law of 1844.
So who decided what you were taught in school, and why did the people in
power not want you to know about those things?
What things are you unaware of now that are being deliberately omitted
on the evening news?
The reason for
this lengthy, while hardly comprehensive, tale of our country’s history, is to
point out that at no point has America been “great” for a majority of its
people. It has, however, been consistently great for white, male, wealthy,
heterosexual, Christian, able-bodied landowners, particularly bankers and businessmen.
Further, in
exactly what way does Donald Trump plan to make America great “again?” I doubt he promotes a return to the civil
rights advances of the 60’s and the social constructs that leveled the playing
field for the oppressed. At what part of
history has American been truly great, or is greatness something to which we
can aspire, if united? So far his words
and actions serve only to divide people.
So this brings
us to the 2016 Presidential election, and we have some important choices to
make, choices which will literally affect the entire world. We can vote for candidates who are owned by
the New Right and the 1%, who frankly don’t care about you and me, or we can
pick someone on our side.
I highly
recommend the following website, the Political Compass: http://politicalcompass.org/
There is a link
to a quiz you can take to determine your political leanings, and there is also
a link to view where the current Presidential candidates fall on the spectrum
between left and right, as well as between authoritarian and libertarian
philosophy.
You may notice that all of
the Republican candidates are in one cluster in the upper-right
(authoritarian/right) quadrant of the graph.
Now notice the difference between the two remaining Democratic
candidates. Hillary Clinton, while more
centrist and less authoritarian than the Republicans, remains in the same
quadrant as them. Bernie Sanders,
however, is in the lower-left quadrant. He
is left-leaning and slightly more libertarian than authoritative, like Democrats
used to be. He has been fighting for
civil rights for decades, while Clinton has aligned herself with the likes of
Barry Goldwater and Henry Kissinger, both glaring human rights violators.
Though he is
running as a Democrat, he has been an Independent in the Senate for many
years. To view his voting record, bills
introduced and sponsored, and compare to his opponents, visit www.votesmart.org, a non-partisan site that
compares issues and candidates.
Yes, like
Donald Trump, he is the non-establishment candidate. But that is where any resemblance ends. Unlike Trump, he is not a billionaire spewing
hate and contempt for others. His campaign
is not being financed by a single Super-PAC, but by the American people, voters
like you and me. He has a long history
of sticking up for the trod upon, the very people whom Donald Trump would
exploit to make a fast buck.
If you think
Donald Trump is on your side, or intends to make America great for anyone other
than himself, think again. He is a rich, spoiled product of the New Right, and
is rife with all the accompanying corruption and greed. He plans to dial back civil rights, make the
rich richer, and the poor poorer. And
God help you if you are a person or color, or an immigrant, or a Muslim. Because while Trump doesn’t live by the
precepts of the Bible, he loves to carry one around and bash people over the
head with it. He will pretend to be
whatever the evangelicals want him to be so he can become more powerful. If you vote for him, the joke is not only on
you; it is on the world. He has even
bragged that he could stand on the corner and shoot people and not lose
votes. He treats the entire election
process as a hilarious joke. If he wins
we all lose.
Liberals are trying to make America truly great for the
first time. We don’t want to go
backwards to a fantasy that never was. We want to create a nation
that is “great” for everyone, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, creed,
religion, skin color, gender, ability, etc.
Every victory has been hard fought and hard won, and we have suffered
setbacks, but in Bernie Sanders we have an ally with a proven history of
compassion and strength, who will not swerve from his ideals. He, unlike any other candidate in decades, is
not entrenched in scandal and corruption, and is truly on our side. I hope you will join me, if you haven’t already, in
voting for him in your state's primary, and again in November.
Vote like the world depends on it, because at this point,
it truly does.
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